RCMP Superintendent hoping to keep crime down even as economy improves

Jan 11, 2018 | 6:58 AM

Crime trends were down all the way through 2017, according to the head of the Grande Prairie RCMP detachment.

When it comes to 2018, Superintendent Don McKenna says there will be more chances for people to get involved in the drug trade if the economy continues to get better.

“There may be an upturn in that. I think we’re ready for that. We’re going to do our best to keep the trend going down. I know you see in Maclean’s magazine how we’ve fallen from number one back in 2015 to now number 12. I’d like to see us go farther down.”

He adds the local detachment has tools like a Crime Reduction Unit it did not have a couple years ago.

“We started that in 2015. We put a presentation into the City Council and we got the resources for a Drug Unit and a Crime Reduction Unit. We’ve used both of those to the full advantage. I also asked for an analyst, so now we have a second analyst and that helps us to be far more targeted in our enforcement.”

McKenna says the detachment had been lacking resources to deal with illegal drugs.

“What happens when people get hooked on drugs is it changes the way you think. What becomes important to you is something that shouldn’t be important to you. What should be important to you is your family, what your parents think your brothers, your wife, your husband. Those things are important, your children, but when people get hooked on drugs, they lose that.”

McKenna says people will do what he calls “outrageous things” to get “poison in their veins.”

by Curtis Galbraith